Create impeccable experiences as an event sponsor - 5 tips
In my last blog post I spoke about networking and how important it is to create networking opportunities at your event. The digital age, despite introducing many new ways to engage, has not replaced face-to-face interaction. Events, particularly industry events and association conferences, usually provide an excellent one-stop-shop for making and establishing new relationships and partnerships, finding new suppliers and meeting prospective customers.According to Research by Oxford Economics, in person meetings are 85% more effective when meeting with prospects and 65% when meeting with customers. Your presence at events, leveraged through sponsorship or through taking exhibition space, provides an access point to your organization and is a chance to market and sell your organization. You create opportunities to personally experience your brand through the people that represent you and the way they engage. It stands to reason that the way you show up at the event and what you do is incredibly important, beyond having beautiful banners, business cards and free mints. But are we getting it right?
In this blog I have assembled a few tips based on my experience of managing large, sponsored events over the past 20 years. These tips aim to assist sponsors to get more value from the events they sponsor, and are all simple and quite easy to implement.
- Do your research. Find out who is going to be at the event and what their likely key aims and objectives are. How can you assist? Can you offer event attendees something out of the ordinary to mark the event? Have a list of people you want to see or a target number of different types of stakeholders you want to engage.
- Set up meetings in advance. Advance schedule a chat, coffee, visit to your stand if you have taken one, or dinner. Residential events offer lots of opportunities. You may not be the only one requesting time, so plan early.
- Select great brand ambassadors and clarify their objectives. Establish who will attend the event from your company and clarify roles and objectives for each person. Employees can be presenting at the event, answering detailed or technical product or service offering questions, or actively looking for leads. No matter what their role, ensure that they are briefed to promote your brand too. For example, do they know the company values, or what it values through how it operates, and where it sees itself in the future? Are they aware of skills needed, positions the organization is trying to fill, or new initiatives on the horizon that would be of interest to those attending the event?
Are the people you are sending to the event positive and engaging brand ambassadors, and will they create a good impression of your organization? Don’t damage your brand by leaving this to chance. One on one interactions matter. - Arrange for training and development. To be effective at sales and marketing, you need to be good at face-to-face meetings says the research. Don’t let your employees hide behind computer screens, banners, coffee cups or phones at events, or cluster with people they know (or other employees for those detailed work catch ups that could happen back at the office). This happens far too often at events. Give employees the brief, confidence and know-how to excel at face-to-face engagements and to achieve real objectives at events. Invest in a short training module for anyone who is front facing at an event. Consider making it a standard requirement for those who man stands. Introverts (and trainers) can access some useful tips on this subject here.
- Follow up (and learn). Have a process in place for following up on everything that happened at an event and for sharing outcomes. Link back to the targets you set when you were researching and planning for the event. Modify them for the next event. Extend excellent experiences on site through proactive and responsible interactions in the weeks that follow. That’s leveraging better value for your sponsorship cash.
Show up impeccably as an event sponsor. Deliver an excellent and personable experience through your sponsorship. Prepare well, engage well and follow through.